Sensitive Humans
by ClosetFMAfan
Summary: Suddenly, Al could breathe. He had the power to save or destroy his friend's life. His palms started sweating. No, that wasn't the right way to think. He was going to save his life. No questions asked. Chimera-centric
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! Background: one of the things that always buged me is the lack of post-Promised Day stories about what ends up happening to the chimeras. More backgroud: My policy is that if there is none, or there is nothing good write it yourself. Unless you're positive you're going to fail, but you never really know until you try.**

**This does coencide with my AlMei collection, but I didn't add it there because AlMei is not the main focus/goal/point of this story. I guess I could have used it because there is AlMei in it, but to be honest I'd rather have this be it's own story.**

**I don't own FMA**

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><p>Not much happened on Thursdays in the Imperial Palace. If fact, nothing happened on Thursdays. There were never any meetings, no parties, or any other mentionable events. Even the drudgery of the day seemed to affect the Chang Princess, because that was the day she always gave her pupil off to peruse the palace to his liking. Not much was expected of Thursdays, so when a loud and extremely excited cry for the Princess echoed out of the library one Thursday, it shocked many people. Mei, who had been enjoying her lunch at that particular moment, looked up anxiously, wondering what would make the Amestrian yell for her.<p>

"Would you like me to save your food, Princess?" one of the cooks asked her.

"Yes, Lien. That would be amazing. Thank you." Lien nodded and moved the plate of food to another counter. Sighing, Mei stood up and took off for the palace library, all the while wondering what on earth could have Al so excited, especially on a Thursday like this.

When she arrived in the library, a host of slightly scared servants and scholars were congregated near the front of the room; or more importantly, away from the back. One of the servants recognized her and quickly grabbed her arm.

"Princess Mei, we don't know what came over him. The Amestrian was reading a large book on alkahestry when he suddenly started babbling under his breath and then called for you. He's tearing through the shelves trying to find something! We think he might be possessed!"

"MEI!" he called again and Mei winced. She hadn't realized just how loud he was up close. After reassuring the servants that she would pacify him, she forged her way through the forest of shelves. It didn't take long to find him because there were loud sounds of crashing and book slamming. When he came into eyesight, he was violently flipping through the pages of a thick book she remembered making him read a few months ago. Apparently he wasn't finding what he was looking for, because he threw the book down on the floor and started searching the shelves for another one.

"Alphonse Elric, what on earth are you doing? That book is almost as old as your father!" Al looked up and ran over to her and grabbed her hands.

"Mei, I think I've figured it out!"

She tried to ask what he was talking about, but he cut her off and started talking so rapidly she hardly understand what he was saying. It also didn't help that he kept dragging her around to various places in the room.

"Al— ALPHONSE!" she shouted, he stopped and stared at her.

"What?"

"What are you talking about?" He grinned at her and Mei cursed her heart for fluttering.

"I think I've found the cure for chimeraism." There was a pause.

_"What?"_

"Exactly!" he laughed. "That's what I usually do when you give me the day off. Today I was looking through a book you made me read ages ago and I found it!"

"What did you find?" He pulled her by the hand over to another table where a thick book lay open.

"I've told you about Shou Tucker before, right?" Al questioned as he flipped through a few of the pages. Mei was hyper-aware of his hand still enveloping hers. He had told her about the Sowing-Life Alchemist before. It had only been a few weeks after his arrival and plea for her to teach him. There had been tears in his eyes as he explained the reason for his obsession with returning the chimera's to their original form. She still had nightmares about his voice when he whispered the small girl's fate.

"Yes."

"I was thinking about the difference between Nina and Jerso when I found this!" Al pointed to a complex looking diagram. Mei raised an eyebrow.

"What does this do?" Al's face fell.

"Don't you get it?"

"You're showing me a diagram about the relevance of the mind in the flow of _qi_. What does that have to do with chimeraism?"

"It's like acupuncture. You're familiar with the principle, right?"

"Do you remember when I made you incapable of walking for an hour by only touching your back twice?"

"… I'll just take that as a yes. You used the flow of _qi_ to interrupt the flow of life by touching certain never endings in my back. Couldn't that be applied to the human brain?"

"What do you mean Alphonse? Don't tell me you're thinking of stopping the flow of life to the brain because that could do irreparable damage to—" Al smiled briefly.

"Just give me a minute and I'll explain. So what happens when someone creates a chimera is that they mix genetics of two separate animals together. A normal chimera—as in the kind with a lion's head, goat's body, and snake tail— is mixed on a cellular level that's so basic I don't think they would ever be able to separate. They cells themselves are being mixed together. You can't do that with a human/animal chimera. Animals are extremely complex, but even they can't compare with the complexity of humans. I think that's where Tucker went wrong with Nina. He was trying to mix Nina and Alexander on that same cellular level, which doesn't preserve the human thought process. Honestly, it's amazing Nina could talk at all.

"However, the researchers at Lab 5 must have been smarter than that. Jerso and Zampano still function like any other human, they just have the ability to either grow spines out of their backs, or turn into a talking frog in Jerso's case. To do that the alchemists would have had to preserved their brains the way they were. They would have mixed the animal with their body, but wouldn't have touched the brains, except maybe adding an extra function to allow for transformations."

"But how does this help? Even if their brains are intact, their bodies aren't. There are trillions upon trillions of cells that have been mixed with animal genes. How would you be able to separate the genes at such a finite level?" Mei questioned, her eyebrows close together in confusion.

"That's the thing though, Mei. Their brains _are_ intact. You could go and ask Jerso what his favorite thing to do as a child was and he could answer about throwing rocks at tin cans on a fence."

"But what does that have to do with anything?"

"The subconscious remembers things that the conscious brain could never ever think of remembering. When my body was lost in the gate it didn't have a soul, but it still recognized Ed as my brother and someone who cared about me. It also knew that it couldn't leave until I, meaning my soul, came. When I came along it was my mind that was talking. My mind could recognize my soul, even though it had continued to grow and advance. Their brains are the same, only instead of recognizing their souls they'll be recognizing their old bodies. It's not exactly the same situation, but if they can remember their favorite childhood pastime, they can remember exactly what they used to be, how their body used to function. Every cell process, the exact place of every nerve connection, every function is in their brains. Right now their brains are in an adapted form that allows them to function with the animal genes. But if you could get the brain to reject that adapted form and give it a way to shed the excess…"

"You want to use alkahestry to identify the animal and get the brain to reject it. If we could use alchemy and give control over to the brain it would separate the animal for us!" Mei said, the answer dawning on her.

"Exactly!" Mei smiled at the Amestrian who was smiling widely.

"Al, you're a genius!" He smiled even wider and a small blush dusted itself across his face. "But how would you do that?"

"I don't know. I was hoping you could help with that." Mei nodded, already loosing herself in some quick calculations. Alkahestry was more focused towards feelings then the calculations that made up Western alchemy, but something like this would call for precision beyond any human's mere intuition.

"Well basic alkahestry calls for…"

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><p>Al signed his name at the bottom of the page.<p>

"Mei. It's done." The Xingese girl lifted her head from the table where it had been resting. A few moments before, Al had impatiently told her that her constant badgering and reminders were not making the process go faster.

"Are you sure, Al?"

"I've gone over it 23 times. I've never been less sure in my life, and that includes trying to bring mom back to life. Ed was so confident it rubbed off on me. Now I have that failure in the back of my mind." Mei reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't worry. Nothing like that is going to happen again." They shared a small moment, him looking gratefully up at her and her with her hand on his shoulder, before they pulled apart and started cleaning up the room.

"Is that all of the corrections?"

"Brother, Teacher and Colonel Mustang all said that it looked perfect. Dr. Marcoh said that the conjunction of the third pentagon and the innermost circle wouldn't interfere with any dietary functions, which was something I was seriously worried about." Mei nodded.

"When do you think we'll be ready to try it out?" Al let out a breath, something she noticed enjoying doing. Once she walked in on him just sitting in his room letting out giant puffs of air.

"Probably two days. Have you managed to change Darius and Heinkle's minds?"

"No. They both give their congratulations to you, Zampano, and Jerso, but they said that they're come to terms with what they are and would rather stay that way." Al sighed.

"I was hoping to change their minds. No one should have to go through something like that."

"If they're fine with it, you should be too. Would you be comfortable with doing it in two days? If you need to you can take more time."

"No," Al answered. When he looked at her, she saw the fire that she had never seen in his human face, but had heard often enough in an echoed voice. His golden eyes were blazing with determination. "Jerso and Zampano have waited long enough; they're not going to be forced to wait any longer if I can help it."

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><p>"Come on Al, you've checked it at least a hundred times by now, if you haven't already corrected every flaw we'll be here next week," an anxious Jerso said, tapping his foot. Al smiled apologetically at the two chimeras that were standing in the corner of the room while Al and Mei obsessed over chalk lines on the ground. Every single angle and curve had been measured, re-measured, erased, redrawn, and then moved slightly at least twenty times.<p>

"Al, I think he's right," Mei said quietly. Al smiled nervously at her. Zampano laughed.

"Man Al, I think you're more nervous about this than we are!"

"Oh be quiet," Al answered with false bravdo. "You'll be back to your normal selves in no time, only you'll be down on your knees cleaning my shoes with your spit."

"Charming image, Al," Zampano quipped. Choosing to ignore the comment, the alchemist turned to Mei who was studying the lines of the circle again.

"Are you sure about the symbols on the third triangle?" she asked again.

"We've gone over this, Mei," Al sighed. "Using the same method as we are for the mixture point is just too imprecise. The process might work exactly how it was intended to, but leave Jerso as a twelve year old boy."

"But I think you're being too vauge and you're missing the element of desire. They want to be human again, so shouldn't their brains—"

"Mei, it's a little late now."

Mei closed her mouth and bit her lip. There really was nothing to be done at this point. Al sighed and turned to the two chimeras who were having a hushed conversation.

"Okay. Who's going first?" Jerso and Zampano exchanged some looks and Jerso stepped forward.

"You sure?"

"Al, I've never been surer in my life. If there is anyone who can turn me back into a regular human it'll be you."

Without another word, or giving Al a chance to say something back, he marched into the center of the circle and waited for further instructions. Al looked like he wanted to say something else, but he swallowed what he was going to say and started giving instructions.

"Okay, I'm going to have to ask you to change out of your clothes. I don't want to have to deal with remembering to put those back in the proper place as well."

"But what about the little lady?" Jerson questioned, nodding his head towards Mei, who was looking sort of red.

"Mei?"

"I'll be fine Alphonse. Trust me, I've seen worse."

"… okay." Jerso removed his clothes and stood awkwardly in the center, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone else. Zampano had politely turned around and Mie was avoiding looking when she could.

"Now, if you could just stand a little to the left…" Al gave the chimera a few more instructions which were followed to a tee. Finally there was nothing more to arrange or fuss about and Al was forced to prepare himself for the moment. Tension seemed to build up in the room. Suddenly, Al could breathe. He had the power to save or destroy his friend's life. His palms started sweating. No, that wasn't the right way to think. He was going to save his life. No questions asked. Chimera-centric

One deep breath.

He touched the palms of his hands together.

Another breath.

Then his hands hit the chalk lines on the ground.

Light raced through the room and Al now longer had time to take his time. He had approximately seconds before he would end up doing damage to Jerso's brain. Al reached out with his senses, something he had practiced so many times it was ridiculous. Normally he would content himself with just making sure there was a life form in front of him and stick to that, but this time he surrounded the life form until he could almost see Jerso's brain sitting there in his mind.

Something doesn't belong here, he thought to himself. It didn't take long, probably only milliseconds in real time, seconds for him. To him it looked like a grotesque lump, out of place and completely alien. The lump sat there, leeching off his friend and Al was the only one who would be able to remove it.

"Time to go," he muttered under his breath. With metaphysical fingers, he reached out and jabbed the 'lump' in the exact fashion Mei used when she was particularly angry at him. It was a beacon for the array to use. In theory, when the energy met the symbols they had carefully inscribed on the floor, the 'lump' would respond and the brain would begin the rejection process.

At that point, there was nothing more that Al could do. He pulled his mind away from Jerso's and opened his eyes. The room was filled with mist and steam, but the blue light was still leaping around happily in the circle. Mei was standing a few feet away coughing, and he crawled over to her.

"Mei, what happened?"

"I don't know," she said loudly so that she could be heard over the sound of the array. "When it hit the hydrolysis symbols, this happened. Shouldn't it be over by now?"

"I don't know." They held onto each other, waiting for the blue light to calm down. It took a while, minutes at least, while their hearts hammered inside their rib cages. Al's breathing was heavy and he didn't even take notice of his heart racing, something which he usually relished. He would have felt bad about squeezing the blood out of Mei's finger's if she wasn't cutting off the circulation to his arm.

When the light finally crackled away, they stared fearfully into each other's eyes. Now was the moment of truth: either it worked, or their friend was no more. Mei was the first to stand and she graciously helped Al to his feet. When her feet almost gave way in a puddle of condensed water, he wrapped an arm around her and they helped each other to the heart of the transmutation. Once they were near the center, Al beat the air around them with his hand. The steam cleared. The light flickered and cast shadows on the mass in the center.

Screams echoed through the room.

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><p><strong>There is another chapter, so please review. It makes me write faster you know!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**Yeah, I finally updated! Whohooo!**

**Big thanks to violetlight for PMing and telling me to finally actually update the thing! Awesome! And a big thanks to everyone who had to sit there and ignor- sorry, listened to me ramble on about all of my ideas and plans for this chapter!**

**Note: Episode 39 is pretty much all that we know about Jerso and Zampano's families. That Jerso is mostly looking forward to seeing his daughter and that Zampano was a drinker and his son probably wouldn't be able to stand him. I've based pretty much everything in this chapter off those two statements...**

**Another Note: Annie Phiri is a real person. I wrote a thirty page essay in which she featured almost nine! Yes, I do think that Jerso is just a first name.**

**Please enjoy!**

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><p>Doors had never been so intimidating.<p>

The door itself was quite lovely, actually. It was made of very nice wood with a beautiful window. The door handle was well burnished and the keyhole for the lock was intricate and hard to pick.

So really, he shouldn't be afraid of the door.

But he was.

"Al, are you sure you don't want me to come in with you?"

"No," he answered, shaking his head at the Princess. "This is something I need to do alone."

"Okay," she answered, laying her hand on his shoulder. "It's going to be okay, Al. I promise."

"Thanks," he answered, smiling weakly. He sated at the door a little longer (where did they get stain that color? It was quite striking) before breathing in deeply. It was only a few steps to the panel of wood, but they seemed to take forever.

The knock also seemed to echo forever. Why couldn't things just go quickly? It was getting ridiculous.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hello. My name is Alphonse Elric and I—"

"I'm sorry, I won't be buying anything today," the woman answered firmly. She had fairly long black hair held back in a braid and a strong face. Her face wore a slightly annoyed look, as if he had interrupted something she was enjoying.

"Um, no, Mrs. Phiri, I'm not selling anything. I would actually like to talk to you about your husband, Jerso. Would you mind me coming in?"

Her eyes narrowed in confusion and mistrust, but she stepped aside and opened the door wider. Al smiled nervously and entered the house. He couldn't help but inwardly smile and the analogy to a tomb that came to mind. She led him to a sitting room and gestured to a seat near the window. The couch, which sat across from the chair he was in, was occupied by a black-haired girl that looked about fifteen.

"Hi," he said, smiling slightly. "You must be Annie." She frowned at him.

"How did you know that?"

"Your father," he answered simply, sitting down in the seat.

"You knew my father?" she asked, shocked.

"You knew Jerso?" Mrs. Phiri said sadly at the same time. Al looked at the woman and nodded.

"I worked with him. In fact, I was his main medical aid until about a month ago…"

It took a while for the full meaning of what he said sink in, but when it did they both stared at him. Annie even bolted upright.

"How is that possible? Dad died five years ago in service. There was a ceremony and everything."

"Did you actually see a body?" They both looked taken aback and didn't answer. Al smiled sadly. "The military lied a lot a few years ago. You aren't the only one. Your husband didn't die five years ago, Mrs. Phiri. He was… he was turned into what alchemists call a chimera. It's basically a biological mix of two different animals. Using a human to create a chimera is strictly against the law, but the government did it anyways. They told you he was dead so that the secret would never get out."

"But how… why? Why did they do that? Why did he never come back? How do you know this? Why—"

"Annie," he mother chastised, then turned to look at Al with pain in her face.

"It would probably be best if I started more or less from the beginning," Al said apologetically. "This must be terribly shocking and confusing. I'll do my best to explain. I actually first met your husband—" he was mostly addressing Mrs. Phiri, letting Annie listen in, "—and his partner in a fight. Both of them had already been turned into chimeras and I think that they had been that way for little over half a year…"

The two Phiri's were good listeners and Al was grateful of that. They didn't stop him to ask questioning, they just absorbed the information he gave them. Annie did gasp a little as his description of the battle with Father (heavily editing his participation and the influence of human transmutation), but other than that they were silent.

"I thought I had found the prefect cure. It seemed logical, the math and science check out, equivalent exchange wasn't being cheated, and all of the experts we knew couldn't find anything wrong with it—"

"It didn't work, did it?" Mrs. Phiri asked, voice hollow. Al squirmed in his seat. She had already lost her husband once. Maybe he shouldn't have come.

"He told me right before the transmutation that if anything went wrong that he wanted— no, needed me to come and see you two. He really, truly loved you two. He said it flat out that the only reason he fought in the coup was to keep you two safe and so her could restore his body to be with you. That's why he came to Xing."

"Was it painful?" Annie asked, sounding many years younger than she was.

"The transmutation? I'm sorry, I don't know. And I'm really sorry about everything—"

"It's not your fault," Mrs. Phiri said, smiling sadly. "You can't be much older than Annie. You tried so hard. I can tell that you really wanted to help him. You simply can't blame yourself."

Al nodded gratefully. "Thank you. If it's not too much of a pain, there is something else that he wanted me to do. Would you mind?"

"No, of course," they said in unison. He stood up, smoothed out the wrinkles from his slacks, and walked down the hall to that beautiful door that looked a great deal less menacing. He knew that this was want Jerso wanted. The two women were following close behind him, staying completely silent.

"My friend Mei Chang should be just outside with it…" He knew that behind his back they were exchanging odd glances. No doubt they were confused about what was going on.

He opened the door and took a few seconds to acclimate himself to the bright sun shine. He caught sight of Mei standing near the car and she smiled widely at him.

"Done with the hard part?" she asked nonchalantly.

"Yes, I am thank you very much. With very little help from you."

"I offered," she said, trying to keep from laughing. "I even offered some fake tears in the car. They were very convincing, weren't they Zampano?"

"Very convincing," the ex-chimera answered.

"What's going on here?" Mrs. Phiri asked, confused as she stepped out onto the porch. As soon as she did though, she gasped and a hand flew to her mouth. There were tears gathering at the corners of her eyes and they started to fall not long after.

"Jerso!"

Then she was running and laughing as she met her husband in the middle of the lawn, crying as he hugged her as tight as she could. Annie soon followed suit and collided with the couple, almost sending them backwards.

"I love you. I love you both. I love you so much," Jerso was muttering as he hugged his family as tightly as he could. "I spent every day thinking about you. Every night."

The tears were falling fast and thick, they could all see that. Al smiled happily, tears threatening to break the surface of his own eyes. Mei was likewise disposed and Zampano said something about allergies and turned away. After a few moments when the group hadn't split up, they started climbing into the car, not wanting to disrupt the family moment.

As they did so however, they broke up and Mrs. Phiri moved towards them. He smiled at them but she went to hug Al tightly.

"Thank you for saving my husband. Thank you so much. I will never be able to repay you."

"Repay me by loving him. I did this because I wanted him to be happy and your love is all he needs to be happy. Really, you don't owe me anything."

"I always will though," she said, smiling through the tears that were still on her face. "Thank you so much."

Jerso also came over, throwing his arm over Al's shoulder.

"Thank you, man. If it wasn't for you… thank you. You are just… thank you. She thinks she owes you, _I _owe you."

"Really, you don't," Al protested but Zampano cut him off.

"Yes I do. If you are ever in town, ever, please come by. We will do everything we can to help you out."

Al nodded gratefully and smiled.

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><p>After Zampano had protested for a full hour against using the same ploy they used at Jerso's home, Al and Mei had agreed to let him go up to the door himself. Mei particularly wanted to do it, so that she could be involved this time, but he point blank refused. Instead, he agreed to let them come up to the door with him.<p>

They had discovered, trying to find where his family had gone, that his wife had died a few years previously in an accident. Zampano had been severely devastated by the news because he had plans to not only reunite with his wife but beg her for forgiveness. He had not been a kind man to her or his son when in his (regrettably) many drunken rages.

They had also learned that his son, Michael, had married a woman named Tracy and they had had a son a year ago. It was on their door that his heavy knuckles knocked.

A short, but pretty, woman opened the door a few moments later, an infant sitting on her hip. She was still finishing up laughing when she opened it, and turned to look at them with a smile.

"Hello. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"You're Tracy?" Zampano asked, all his carefully rehearsed lines disappearing in the wind.

"Yes, I am. Do I know you?"

"No, you wouldn't. Well you might know of me, but you wouldn't know me. There aren't a lot of people who know me because, well it's a long story but I'd like to explain it to you—"

"You're husband, Michael," Al interrupted. "We would like to speak with him and with you, if that's okay."

She nodded cautiously, her smiled having disappeared rather quickly.

"Michael!" she called through the house. There was laughing and he came into view, smiling widely. The moment he caught sight of the man in the doorway, however, his face dropped and turned pale. Zampano's face changed a couple different colors as he looked at his son.

"… Dad?"

Tracy frowned at Zampano.

"I thought you said that your father died five years ago."

"He did," Michael answered, his face still pale and confused. His eyebrows were meeting in the middle of his forehead in a manner that was so reminiscent of Zampano, Al couldn't help but marvel at the similarities between the two.

"But how could…"

"I think everyone's going to need to sit down…" Mei said helpfully. "It's a long story."

Tracy dazedly led them to the parlor and they sat down, moving a few books and sheets of paper to find a place to sit down. Zampano and Michael didn't take their eyes off of each other the entire time.

"Well, um, he's not dead," Al said weakly. "You see, the military was lying a lot before the coup four years ago. One of the things that they did with alarming frequency was creating human chimeras. I don't know if you know what a chimera is, but it's basically a biological mix between two different animals. Turning a human into a chimera is against the law and every time they did one of these, they would tell the families of the soldier's that said soldier had died so that the secret wouldn't get out… uh… that's what's happened."

Al was stumbling over his words. It had been easier the first time, but that was mostly because there wasn't waves of animosity and old hurts rolling of Michael. He was glaring at his father and Zampano tried his best to convey his own thoughts through his stare.

"We met during a fight and my brother and I won. When he and his partner found out that the government was attempting to sacrifice the population of the country in a transmutation he—"

"I'm sorry," Zampano said, interrupting Al. Everyone stared at him except Michael who sneered.

"'I'm sorry'? That's what you have to say for yourself?"

"It's wasn't his fault that the military—" Al tried to say but the look on Michael's face stopped him. This wasn't about dying, this was about what had happened before.

"What else can I say, Michael?" Michael flinched when he said this. "I was horrible. I was a drunkard. I beat your mother and sometimes I beat you. I was soulless and a monster and I deserved every horrible thing that's happened to me in the past few years. I deserve it all. I deserved to die when Major Miles tried to kill me. I fought in the coup so that you and your mother wouldn't get hurt and I know that that not anything that's happened to me or the things I've done will make up for what I did to you and your mother but I will try until my dying breath." Almost this entire speech was said in one breath and he had turned a bright shade of red before taking a deep huff of a breath afterwards.

Tracy's gaze kept flitting between the two men and Al and Mei joined her in the movement. They were all watching to see who would say something next, who would try to break the silence.

"It might take you that long," Michael said eventually. Zampano didn't nod or shrug or any other motion. "But I'm willing to let you try."

* * *

><p>Al and Mei climbed into the car alone. When they did so, both sighed heavily.<p>

"I did it."

Mei looked over at Al in confusion.

"I actually did it." He sounded satisfied and content, something she hadn't heard from him in a while. "Both of them… they're exactly where they should be. They've been given exactly what they've been searching for for so long. I'm just… I'm really glad I got to be a part of that."

"You're a good man, Alphonse."

He sighed again.

"Thanks."

There was a brief bout of silence.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Mei smiled and bumped him on the shoulder with her own. He grinned at her, slightly light headed from the excitement of everything that had been going on.

"Find something else to do."


End file.
